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Life lived bravely across a century

Max Schmeling was four months into his 100th year when he died on Wednesday but it was not only the length of his life that made him unique among holders of the world heavyweight championship, which was in his possession for almost exactly two years between the summers of 1930 and 1932. His appeal as a propaganda tool brought him into closer contact with Hitler and Goebbels than was either comfortable or safe and it is doubtful if any fighter (even the great earlier champion Jack Johnson, who was hounded out of the US for being an unsubservient black man) was ever subjected to more overtly political pressure by his government.

Nothing in his epitaph does Schmeling more credit than the fact that he emerged from his risky experiences of the Nazi era with a reinforced reputation for honourable behaviour, and especially for personal resistance to racism. He defiantly refused